This invention relates to an automatic laundry tie-off apparatus and method. The invention has general application in automated laundry facilities and, in particular, in large, automated commercial laundry facilities where uniforms and similar garment items are delivered for laundering. The invention also has application in other types of laundry facilities and for other types of laundry items.
Many employers furnish uniforms for employees. These uniforms are sized for the employee and often labeled with the employee's name. When soiled they are typically collected at the employer's place of business by a commercial laundry truck and taken to a laundry facility for laundering, and thereafter returned on regular schedule to the employer's place of business for use by the employee.
Historically, this type of commercial laundry processing was very labor intensive. Extensive labeling and sorting was required, and much hand-work was necessary to insure that laundry collected from a particular customer was properly delivered back to the same customer on the proper schedule, and with all of the garments properly sorted by employee, department or other necessary criteria. Much effort has gone into automating these types of processes, and prior art patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,419,439, 5,125,513 and 3,550,772 disclose means by which many of the steps carried out during the entire laundering process have been improved in reliability and made less labor-intensive.
However, the final steps of processing the laundry items, which include identifying the items by group and then physically joining the items in that group together have not yet been successfully automated. These are important steps in the process, since the laundered items must be sorted properly according to where they must be delivered and according to the employee to whom they are assigned. Even in otherwise highly automated laundry facilities, it is typical for laundry items to be manually examined to determine the name of the employee to whom the garments belong, to physically group the garments together and then apply a twist-tie or some other similar type of tie to the neck of the garment hangers, thereby grouping the garments according to employee.
The present invention provides a reliable means of automatically grouping laundry items, such as garments, and then automatically physically joining together the laundry items according to a predetermined group identity, such as by employee, plant location, department, or the like.